"EliteXC: Heat" salaries: Arlvoski and "Kimbo" top earners with $500K

The total disclosed payroll for this past weekend’s “EliteXC: Heat” event at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla., topped $1.3 million — with Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and main-card fighter Andrei Arlovski taking the lion’s shares with $500,000 each.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today requested and received the list of official salaries directly from the Florida State Boxing Commission.

The total disclosed payroll for the event was $1,319,000.

Ferguson, who suffered a 14-second TKO loss to late replacement Seth Petruzelli in the night’s main event, missed earning a $100,000 win bonus with the loss. Pertuzelli, who re-negotiated his deal after accepting the fight, earned $50,000 — $15,000 of which was a win bonus. (Ferguson’s original opponent, Ken Shamrock, cost himself a six-figure payday after being forced out of the bout due to a facial cut.)

* – Ferguson and Petruzelli negotiated new purses after Shamrock was forced out of the event.
+ – Arlovski and Nelson’s purses were paid by Affliction Entertainment. The two competitors fought under the company’s name on the CBS broadcast and were on loan to EliteXC.

Now, the usual disclaimer: the figures do not include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses and taxes. Additionally, the figures do not include money paid by sponsors, which can oftentimes be a substantial portion of a fighter’s income. They also do not include any un-reported “locker room” bonuses that organizations sometime pay.

In other words, these are simply base salaries reported to the Florida commission and and do not represent the total amounts earned by each fighter.

For more on the event, check out our “EliteXC: Heat” page here at MMAjunkie.com.

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